genjuro

You need to remember that MS gets 100% of the weapon damage, whereas bloodthirst gets 0%. A 1200 AP warrior with Ashkandi gets about half of his total DPS from AP and the other half from his weapon, so MS is usually better than bloodthirst. In this scenario you get:

Bloodthirst: 1200*.45 = 540 damage
MS: 3.3*1200/14 + 287 + 160 = 730 damage, and the debuff

Even with 1400 AP bloodthirst still doesn't catch up. Both cost 30 rage, both are on a six second cooldown. Don't be hating on the weapon damage.

 

◊ Praetorian

1.625, actually. Warrior DW spec is inferior to rogue DW spec, probably for this reason.

And yeah, obviously it's more complicated than my initial quick post suggests, and your numbers otherwise look accurate. The point is that white damage scales much much better for DW than for 2h, and at some point, that will overtake the instant-attack weapon damage advantage of 2h weapons.

PvP obviously is a whole different story, but we're talking about DPS, not maximum PvP versatility. MS is the best group PvP debuff in the game, and no amount of damage will change that.

 

• Arawethion

Genjuro's post: good point. This is just one of many cases where Blizz just has not properly considered long-term scaling.

Blizz is very good at balancing things in the "here and now." They have an eye for balance, but don't yet seem to have realized that considering the distant future can save them a lot of trouble.

I'm sure a lot of people here have played D2. That was a wonderful exercise in how not to do scalable balancing. Skills invariably did linearly increasing damage, while monster power grew exponentially. They made rare items which scaled damage quadratically or worse, and basically lined things up so the uber-farmers with the best gear had a challenging experience at the highest difficulty, and nobody else could even kill the early monsters (because they didn't have the +all skills gear that increased their power multiplicatively). A telling example was when builds based around Charged Bolt (a level 1 skill) became prevalent, because +lightning spells gear improved the damage cubically at least (levels in CB gave you more bolts and more damage per bolt, and levels in Lightning Mastery gave percent-based increases to the damage of each bolt).

They've certainly come a long way since then (among many other ways in which the D2 experience visibly prepared them for WoW), but still don't seem to understand that by considering the long-term implications of scaling, they don't have to try to fight with balance at every new level of gear.


--AP and +hit/crit have multiplicatively combining effects on weapon DPS.
Corollary: Agi improves damage quadratically. This matters little, since you get most of your crit from +crit gear and not from Agi. Still, they realized that Hunters damn well couldn't have the same Agi/crit ratio as everyone else. Possibly should have been a clue to them that things could have been done more cleanly.
--The abundance of important abilities that don't scale at all is telling. Eviscerate, Swipe, Shield Slam, Execute, etc. Why have things that can be balanced for the present or the future, but not both?
--Heroic Strike vs. Maul
--As started this discussion, AP affects different weapon users in entirely different ways. What's the point of even having such a generalized attack stat if it gives no basis for meaningful comparison across classes?
--More elaborately: A Warrior gets a 2AP for a Str. A Rog gets 1 for a Str and 1 for an Agi. However, according to the itemization rules, 12 Str is worth as much on an item as 8Str/8Agi, which is worth as much as 24 AP, or even 8Str/16AP. The Warrior gets more AP from by same "item stat budget" by dividing his points over 2 stats that do exactly the same thing. This hasn't become a serious issue yet, but still makes no sense. This is even worse when you throw Druids into the mix.
--Above discussion in the context of casters. I have one way of increasing +damage (+spelldmg). Some other classes have 3 (Str, Agi, AP). This interacts terribly with the itemization rules (not even mentioning that Agi has multiple effects). Actually, I don't have to keep going on about how tacked-on the whole +spelldmg mechanic is, but it sort of exmplifies this whole discussion.
--In addition to the whole AP vs. spelldmg thing, there's the "base" damage term to which these things are added (base weapon damage or spell damage, respectively).
Scaling for casters: zero
Scaling for weapon users: not zero
What were they thinking?

That's about all that comes to mind immediately.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

• Arawethion

Yes, but the discussion (after derailment into theorycraft) is purely about scaling.

EDIT: Elaborating. It doesn't matter that the amount of AP which makes a Bloodthirst actually equal to an MS (with any weapon) is extremely high. The point is that Arms and Fury do comparable amounts of DPS now, and one has an instant that will improve far more quickly.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

genjuro

Hold on, they scale at the same rate. Bloodthirst scales at 45% of your AP while MS scales at 23% of your AP (3.3* 1/14) plus 100% of your weapon damage. People frequently forget that weapon damage scales just as fast as AP, and warriors generally get half of their total damage from their weapon. The imbalance is not with bloodthirst/MS, it's the interaction between hit/crit and AP that makes DW warriors so much more powerful.

 

Taeme

There is no linear scale that AP works by, since armor is designed by weird people who make up whatever they feel like. It only scales if Blizzard decides it should scale.

I think AP would scale faster than weapon damage for some classes if good armor came out at the same ilvl as the weapons we're using. If all my armor was ilvl 81 I think I'd probably have AP to weapon damage at a 1.5:1 ratio or so.


Also D2's scaling was messed up because Attack power was a multiplier, not a simple flat bonus. In this game AP and spell damage are pretty much the same thing, they just look a little bit different and have some funkier interactions.

you're the one that decided to trust me

 

• Arawethion

Ok, I think we're all saying the same thing now: even though a point of AP adds more to Fury/DW than it does to Arms, the weapon damage half of the equation scales better for Arms (the way itemization seems to be working), so the overall result is indeterminate. That's what I meant by my initial reply to Gurgthock in this thread, just in fewer words.

Still, it doesn't make me happy. All it means is that both styles of Warrior DPS are scaling inordinately quickly. The fact that Arms and Fury grow at about the same rate isn't some kind of clever design that some Blizzard guy foresaw--if they had, they wouldn't have given Warriors two different ways to be better than everybody else.

Taeme: still, all the points in the item budget are being put somewhere by the people who design item pieces. So unless we reach a state where item selection options are so poor that some classes have to wear armor where many of the stats are wasted, your AP will grow linearly as ilvl increases. The hand-itemized loot just adds some fluctuations.

AP and spell damage are pretty much the same thing. Blizz has the right idea in that sense, but some of the "funkier interactions" I described above can cause trouble.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

◊ Drauk

Hmm, whats wrong with that ?

Fun is for casuals

 

Amberyl

when i said "miss" i guess i was lumping together miss, dodge and parry. all of those will result in no regular attacks for ~7 seconds for those who use slow 2H.

edit: actually a dodge would be a very good thing for someone using a big slow 2H

http://img415.imageshack.us/img415/6373/ambersig8mr.png

 

Anglakel

When I played, I ripped rogues in half on damage meters when speced arms/fury (improved execute at times) and I died from pulling agro just like every other dumb shmuck mage/lock who does too much damage, so spec how you want. Your limiting factor will always be your tank because of a lack of agro whipe. Especially for horde, you can't give your shamans Ashkandis, and hunters arn't real people. ^_^

http://www.ctprofiles.net/1689539

 

Tamuf

exordium

 

◊ Wubwub

<Exordium>

 

Xizorz

2h will always have a certain place, even in PvE, since any scenario where you fight 2-4 enemies the 2h should win out regardless of spec, due to cleaves and whirlwinds stacking with weapon dmg.

http://ctprofiles.net/298322

 

Breaksmith

I always get amazed that no one ever considers the threat/damage ratio in these kind of discussions. It doesn't really matter how much raw damage you can do in a PvE situation, what matters is how much damage you can do without pulling aggro and dying.

I have much more to say. I'll do so when I have time.

http://ctprofiles.net/19558

 

◊ Praetorian

Yeah, if your DPS is heavily reliant on spamming Heroic Strike you are going to have some issues.

 

• Arawethion

Basically, that one scales in a massively better way than the other.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

Elerion

Except we're not in BWL anymore.

 

Xizorz

Even in BWL aggro isn't a huge issue. Eat some wing buffets on the drakes. You have to be in tank gear for Broodlord and Vael, Razorgore is meh. Get a new tank if he can't hold aggro on Chromaggus and Nef, between all your LOSing and killing totems/infernals and such.

Onyxia is the real killer for fury warriors and I could probably pull aggro with a pair of lvl 5 greens.

http://ctprofiles.net/298322

 

XI-

If you don't have crap for gear you can pull aggro on any mob in the game spamming abilities even with salvation.

 

Breaksmith

I am careful with my threat and tend to keep it in my pants most of the time, but I do pull aggro on bosses on occasion, Flamegor the other night after the MT ate a couple of knockbacks for instance. I definitely think that a BWL geared Fury Warrior DPS is limited more by threat than any other issue. It's obvious that given sufficient rage, the largest DPS you could manage would be Bloodthirst and Whirlwind and then Heroic Strike spam when they're on cooldown. That's going to get you a lot of threat. Not only that, but the best way to get more DPS from Heroic Strike spam is to use a faster weapon. Silithid Claw would make an amazing HS spam weapon, but the threat generation would be insane.

There is of course a human being pressing the buttons and you can just not press Heroic Strike to reduce your threat to DPS ratio but by doing so, you reduce your potential DPS.

I definitely believe (as in have faith and some bad maths, not like proper evidence) that a slow ass MH and a fast OH, hooked up to batshit mental amounts of +hit and AP along with whatever +crit comes along free with the other stats will give you the most DPS for the smallest threat. So while that might not necessarily be the optimum for pure damage output, it will give you the most useable damage so should be favoured by your PvE DPS types.

http://ctprofiles.net/19558

 

Brilliance

All I will say is our resident fury warrior pulled agro on Nef @ 17%. (and was one hit on the spot, but thats besides the point, lol @ 5.5k hp raid buffed)

And he knows better then to spam HS.

 

Xizorz

Theres a video out of a Warrior named George who did some 130k dmg Nef phase 2 with a Thunderfury, 30-40% above all the rogues/hunters. It was posted on the warrior forums, ill try to find it.

http://ctprofiles.net/298322

 

◊ Praetorian

Ugh.

Yeah, abusing pre-1.9 Thunderfury with 2-3 targets up at all times for him to hit. Not a relevant video except to show the interaction of a few broken mechanics.

 

Brilliance

Lets get our facts straight here. (I have seen the video)

A) It was the 1.8 godly Thunderfury, the 30% proc one, I might be off a patch.
B) It was phase 1
C) All he did was cleave and watch the proc do all the damage for him.
D) Showed no real relation towards CURRENT fury warrior dps (as my statement was from our BWL clear on 3/12, not a BWL clear that we did 4 months ago)

So, the video showed nothing amazing, other then how amazing the old Thunderfury used to be, that is.

Edit - Stupid Emoticons.

 

Flagrant Homo

The same guy who made the video (George) made a thread in the warrior forums a few weeks ago claiming to have done 300,000 damage to Nefarian phase 2 alone with a 1.9 TF in his main-hand and a Crul'shorukh in the off-hand. The screenshot is here.

He had the Onyxia buff and a myriad of consumables too presumably (you can see his Elemental Sharpening Stones in the screenshot, he died late phase 3 - notice the 20k DPS in-take he has), but he also said he focused more on stamina for that fight because he had to eat Shadowflames during fears. On another note he said the same numbers could be reproduced when he MH'd Crul'shorukh and OH'd a Brutality Blade.

Take that as you will!

edit: I guess he could be lying but I dunno why i guess this is the internet afterall